The present invention relates to a device with a movable door seal for a closable door leaf of an elevator installation and an elevator installation with such a device.
Elevator installations usually comprise an elevator car that moves vertically upwardly and downwardly in an elevator shaft and can in general go to several floors. The elevator shaft has shaft doors with at least one horizontally displaceable shaft door leaf. A car door with at least one horizontally displaceable car door leaf is disposed at the elevator car. The car door moves in the shaft together with the elevator car. One of the shaft doors and the car door may open automatically only when on each occasion the elevator car reaches a destination floor. The shaft door of a floor is opened by the car door when the elevator car stops in the region of the corresponding floor. For the opening, the shaft door is moved by an entrainer unit of the car door, wherein the shaft door panel and the car door panel open virtually simultaneously.
Details of an entraining unit are shown in a patent application which was filed on Sep. 18, 2002 and bears the title “Coupling system for unlocking a shaft door leaf and a car door leaf”. This patent application has application number EP 02405810.9.
Door gaps, which are usually sealed by sealing lips or the like, result between the car door leaves and the elevator car and in the region of the shaft door leaf. It is a disadvantage of these sealing lips that during opening and closing of the door leaf they rub along a sealing surface. Firstly this rubbing leads to wear of the sealing lips and secondly disturbing noises can be caused by the rubbing. Worn sealing lips no longer satisfactorily fulfil their sealing function. Disruptive air currents in the elevator car or in the shaft door region can thereby arise particularly in the case of high-performance elevators which move very rapidly. Moreover, disturbing noises can penetrate into the elevator car.
High pressure differences, which engage an intact sealing system, occur particularly in the case of high-performance elevators.
In the case of fire the passengers of the elevator can be put at risk by smoke gases. Accordingly, the door seals at the elevator car are to be designed so that they delay or even prevent penetration of combustion gases into the elevator car.
A sealing system for a car door is described in European Patent EP 616 970 B1 that shows an elevator car, the car door leaves of which are guided along a rail which has inclined sealing surfaces. Each car door leaf is provided with an angled profile member which has an inclined surface. If the car door leaves are closed, then the inclined surfaces of the angled profile members approach the inclined sealing surfaces. If the car door leaves are closed, the surfaces then lie on one another and serve as a seal. This arrangement is costly. Rubbing of the surfaces cannot be prevented by this solution.
Another kind of sealing system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,059,191. In this patent an elevator installation is described which has a movable seal between the elevator car and the elevator shaft. Thus, on stopping of the elevator car at the level of the floor, disturbing air currents in the door region can be reduced. According to this patent a seal is pressed by the elevator car mechanically against the shaft wall on opening of the elevator doors.
A seal which can be moved electromagnetically is known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,734,238. However, this is a seal which provides a sealed region for the access to the elevator car. The point of this seal is to prevent disturbing noises or drafts from arising. After stopping of the elevator car in the region of the shaft door, seals are brought by stroke magnets into a setting for sealing off the transition region at the top, bottom and the sides. In other words, the seal permits a sealing between the elevator car and the elevator shaft. The seals do not seat at the doors.
A sealing system for sealing the elevator car is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,735,293. This system is based on the fact that pressure seals are bought into a sealing position when the car door leaves close. For this purpose the car door leaves carry movable seals which during closing of the leaves run against a mechanical abutment and are thereby lowered into the sealing position. In that case a horizontal sliding movement of the car door leaves is converted into a vertical sliding movement of the seals. In this solution as well a rubbing movement between the seals and a sealing surface at the elevator car results during closing of the car door leaves.
The above-described solutions with movable seals are predominantly mechanical in nature. The construction is complex and heavy, which plays a role particularly in solutions in which the sealing device has to be accelerated and moved by the elevator car or the door panel. Completely slide-free seals cannot be realized by the described solutions or can be realized only with unjustifiably high cost.
A first solution which allows realization of completely slide-free seals is shown in the European patent application which was filed on Apr. 25, 2003 and bears the title “Device with movable door seal for a displaceable door leaf of an elevator installation, and elevator installation with such a device”. This patent application has application number EP 03405293.6. The solution disclosed therein is based on a purely mechanical approach.